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SCope13 wrote:Yes, they were terrible terrible people, and yes, I agree with the idea that belief in god isn't a measure of how good a person is. But neither of them did that in the name of atheism. The Crusades were done in the name of religion. 9/11 was done in the name of religion. The Inquisition and the witch trials were done in the name of religion.

I agree in part, but "In the name of religion" is rather difficult to argue... the Crusades were ostensibly "in the name of religion", but they were essentially land-grabs - Western powers wanted the fertile land and natural resources of the middle east as much as they did the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They convinced their armies to put their lives on the line by giving it a religous angle... it was the best way to get them fired up. Today you tell them they're dying for "Freedom".

9/11 could also be argued to be a territorial reaction to Western powers occupying sovereign land in the Middle East as much as it could a "religous" action. Yeah, the people that carried it out did it for God... but the people that ordered it had more complex reasoning (though God was included), as they've stated quite a lot. US military bases in Saudi and the like get mentioned an awful lot... it's not really about spreading the good word of Islam.

The Inquisition and the Witch trials, sure, most definitely... but you're also talking about the Middle Ages there. Spain was in the middle of centuries of flipping between being a Catholic state warring with Protestents like England and getting sacked by the Islamic Moors - "patroitism" is very easy to mix up with religion at that point. We (the English) burnt Catholics here because we were a Protestant country terrified of invasion from Spain or Italy - Catholics were seen as potential plotters (See Guy Fawkes!)... it's not a lot different to Stalin hanging people for not being Communist. In a state of war anything that looks different to the safe and normal gets given an increasingly nervous eye.

Religion is rarely the actual root problem (as the peaceful co-existance of Islam/Christianity in certain areas of Spain pre-crusade attest)... it's just a very common symptom because most people up to the present day have been religious... therefore most people fighting in wars have been religious. Going forward we'll see just as many humanitarian evils as knowledge of science and tecnlology spreads... less and less will be overtly "religious", but it won't really mean too much.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I was just trying to point out that comparing "militant" atheists and religious fanatics is pretty ludicrous.

kay wrote:

Dub_freak wrote:

kay wrote:

Dub_freak wrote:Science has also failed to disprove the existence of unicorns...

If there is no evidence, not even a hint or theory that could prove something is real, then does it really exist at all?

Oh and science and atheism are two different things, there's a reason scientific people are mostly atheist...

I've never actually met a scientist who's an atheist before. All the ones I know are agnostic.

There are two different types of agnostics though. those who ignore religion and those who follow it in the hope there really is a god.

Errr what? By definition, the latter are not agnostics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

Within agnosticism there are agnostic atheists (who do not believe any deity exists, but do not deny it as a possibility) and agnostic theists (who believe a deity exists but do not claim it as personal knowledge).

Thats what i was trying to say.

Aha!

SCope13 wrote:I agree with pretty much everything you said. I was just trying to point out that comparing "militant" atheists and religious fanatics is pretty ludicrous.

why? they both get angry and touchy when met with opposing opinions..

Like I've already said: because militant religious people actually kill other people.

SCope13 wrote:Like I've already said: because militant religious people actually kill other people.

Give it time. Militant atheists have only been around a hundred years or so.

SCope13 wrote:Like I've already said: because militant religious people actually kill other people.

mil·i·tant

adjective

1. vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause: militant reformers.
2. engaged in warfare; fighting.

I was talking about the attitude not the action.

crusades >>>>>>>>>>>